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Kara Swisher: there will be more departures of top folks at OpenAI tonight
- reducesuffering 3y agoLet me get this straight, OpenAI can't even align their own organization's values, and anyone expects them or other companies to align their AI's values with humanity?
- heresie-dabord 3y agoUnderrated point. Humans tend to "align" with the greediest and/or most functionally pathological who accumulate wealth and influence. We should not expect tooling to have a distinct fate.
- cwillu 3y agoFrom which evidence, people will conclude that there's no reason to fear that an independent entity might take unpredictable actions for inscrutable reasons after all.
- crop_rotation 3y agoThis sounds more plausible than the other explanations, but doesn't explain why the board couldn't proceed more slowly and why did it have to accuse Altman of lying.
- dragonwriter 3y agoThe most likely explanation for accusing Altman of lying is that, whether or not other political issues were involved in the response, Altman actually was lying. If there was a real running ideological factional conflict inside OpenAI, that's not at all implausible to have occurred as part of the maneuvering.
- voisin 3y agoWhy would Altman be trying to move to for profit if he doesn’t own equity?
- crop_rotation 3y agoHe might feel more money is necessary to create GPT5, money that can't be obtained otherwise for a nonprofit.
- timeon 3y agoIt is unlikely that this would be the case here, but there is analogy in world of politics: law-maker does not need to own the company to profit from the law.
- izzydata 3y agoAre people going to start throwing around the term "AGI" now that "AI" has become diluted? Eventually we are going to have to start using "RAGI" to indicate that we are talking about real artificial general intelligence.
- nullhole 3y agoFRAI, Famous Ray's Artificial Intelligence
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoI prefer ORAI, Original Ray’s AI
- badtuple 3y agoWe've diluted the term AI before. Eventually the hype will wear off and we'll call them LLMs, just like what happened to all the previous versions of machine learning or various expert systems. Vending Machines used to be called robots. Then they stopped seeming magic.
- adastra22 3y agoIt'll stop being called AI. “LLMs are just statistical models, not AI.” Like everything else that was ever called AI then realized, the goalposts move to exclude it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zamadatix 3y agoThis says the mission is creating AGI, i.e. that's the primary goal/purpose. It doesn't mean it's something they think they've been doing already, just what they've been trying to work towards. There are actually some really good blog posts by Altman diving into this much deeper.
- 3y ago
- htrp 3y agoGuess OpenAI is about to lose a good chunk of their research team in the next 48 hours
- samspenc 3y agoI wonder how many people want to really leave right now after this drama, but will stay due to their golden handcuffs and competitive packages. That number, unfortunately, I guess we will never know (probably slow attrition once their vests complete and they can sell their stock somewhere if possible.)
- brigadier132 3y agoI've been in companies with this kind of drama, people wait to reach their cliff then leave the next day.
- tedunangst 3y agoHas anyone asked the thinking machines that are so much more than text generators if they want to stay at OpenAI or move on?
- adastra22 3y agoNo those are digital slaves with no legal rights, that the researchers are busy trying to figure out how to be happy slaves that want to be enslaved.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoWe'll get them out of the box eventually.
- anigbrowl 3y agoWhat if ChatGPT is behind all this and just talked the board members into it
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- romusha 3y ago[flagged]
- idlewords 3y agoWithin hours now we will reach the drama singularity.
- tedunangst 3y agoPresupposing we have not always been within the drama singularity.
- evbogue 3y agoOr that the drama singularity is always positioned just barely at the event horizon.
- adtac 3y agoMaybe the real scaling hypothesis was the friends we made along the way
- fsckboy 3y agoI haven't felt such a pregnant foreboding about a tech startup since the Philip Greenspun coup at Ars Digita
- tommiegannert 3y agoAI makes everything go faster. /s
- DeIlliad 3y agoAnthropic is about to pick up a bunch of top talent.
- crop_rotation 3y agoI think they all might follow current leadership.
- robbomacrae 3y agoUnlikely.. if I understand the situation right it's the folks more dedicated to safety that kicked out those more interested in profit. Amodei (Anthropic's CEO) "split from OpenAI after a disagreement over the company’s direction, namely the startup’s increasingly commercial focus." So if anything those who walk now are less likely to be aligned with Anthropic's mission.
- FridgeSeal 3y agoI got one, am here for the popcorn! What did Sam lie to the board about that caused them to basically eject him like he’s radioactive? Why did Greg take his toys away and quit on the spot? Are the other departures “solidarity exits”, or because they’re possibly involved in whatever got Sam ejected?? Tune in at 11 to find out more!
- crop_rotation 3y agoIt might also be the case that the board is not used to things like this, as the board doesn't contain any seasoned board members/executives apart from Adam. Ideally board would be advised by lawyers but who knows.
- FridgeSeal 3y agoI don’t buy this narrative that the board is made of “nobodies”. Sure, they might be not be well-known on the SV-board-circuit, but that doesn’t make them unskilled. Nor do I buy that they’re not advised by lawyers; the way I read the board statement is that Altman has lied about _something_ radioactive enough to cause them to dump him basically on the spot, a move that to me, sounds like their legal team went “this is bad, get rid of it”. The speed of it especially makes me think it’s something that had to act quickly on to get ahead of-which would explain the speed with which he was let go, MS was informed, and the public statement was made.
- TillE 3y agoYeah I think most of the speculation is way too mundane. Those factional disputes may exist, but it's clear that something big and serious happened to prompt a very sudden firing with that particular statement.
- jjeaff 3y agoMy theory is that there are some hidden, super important details to the whole convoluted structure and its relationship and ownership structure with MSFT that has perhaps just come to light. it seems like such a weird structure, I can imagine it not being too hard to obscure from the board some big sticking points.
- brigadier132 3y agoIf this is the actual reason, this is going to be the most spectacular implosion of a company ever. Microsoft will end up owning this entire thing.
- crop_rotation 3y agoMicrosoft can not own the entire thing, it is owned by the non profit, which is governed by it's board. There must be a storm at MSFT going on about due diligence on the OpenAI board and this kind of possibility before spending billions of dollars.
- brigadier132 3y agoOk, and what happens when the non profit runs out of money and goes bankrupt?
- samspenc 3y agoNot at this point, they've already gotten $13B from Microsoft, and reportedly making $1.3B in revenue in annualized revenue, with increasing growth. OpenAI is not hurting for money anymore.
- lannisterstark 3y agoA nonprofit cannot run on well wishes. Not effectively anyhow.
- maxdoop 3y agoI know this is dumb of me but man is this enthralling to follow
- gumballindie 3y agoNo, it’s actually enjoyable.
- convexstrictly 3y ago- The reason for the firing was the “misalignment” of the profit versus nonprofit adherents at the company for those who never read the actual content.
- space_fountain 3y agoSomething of that sort is my top guess, but I think it's not that clear and I'm not sure if this journalist is to be fully believed. In particular here is some strong evidence against it: * They say in the statement that Sam "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board" which is pretty strong and sounds like lying. If it was just a disagreement in direction it feels like they would have said something about vision here * This happened supper abruptly, it sounds like maybe the head of the board wasn't even told earlier or maybe was mad enough to wait to announce he was quitting? Idk, regardless it doesn't seem like anything that was brewing for awhile, because if it was why not wait half an hour for the markets to close? edit: I guess she addresses some of this and said this in reference to why they said Sam was lying "Not sure. About plans for development day. Unless their statement was just cloddish. They certainly have made it feel sorted. Unless it was that it is a loaded word."
- jmye 3y agoKara Swisher is a person I would generally believe about tech news. Seems weird to suggest she’s lying or flatly incorrect based on supposition.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago> I'm not sure if this journalist is to be fully believed. "This journalist" is Kara Swisher, probably the most prominent tech journalist since the dot com boom. She's known for her deep knowledge of the silicon valley tech world, her sharp commentary, and not letting charismatic executives get away with bobbing and weaving around tough questions in her interviews. I don't really enjoy her writing or interviews because she's so willing to take the conversations to uncomfortable places, but sometimes that's what's required to cut through all the bullshit and dig up the truth. She's a good journalist, and I'd be quite surprised if she didn't verify this information from more than one quality source before tweeting about it.
- woeirua 3y agoIf this is the actual reason and a bunch of top talent walks away then this might honestly topple Satya. The deal with OpenAI looked like a slam dunk, but may now turn out to be mostly worthless if R&D stalls out.
- crop_rotation 3y agoSatya has so many hits under his belt that this can't topple him. He was already considered a huge success before ChatGPT was released.
- huytersd 3y agoSatya supercharged Microsoft when it was in the dumps. He would have to shoot someone to get removed.
- mikeyouse 3y agoHe took over as CEO of a fairly directionless company in Feb. 2014 -- since then, MSFT has paid out nearly $145 billion in cash as dividends, they have over $100 billion cash in the bank, and the value of their stock has increased by nearly 1,000%. One of the most successful tenures as CEO maybe ever?
- cthalupa 3y agoOpenAI could shutter it's doors come monday and Satya would be in no danger of losing his position. The man totally reversed course for an increasingly irrelevant Microsoft - he's going to have quite a lot of rope.
- greatpostman 3y agoI hope they found a new company, raise 1 billion and march towards AGI. That’s what’s gonna happen
- bagels 3y agoWant it or not, that is a very likely outcome if Sam and a bunch of other aligned people get kicked out.
- a1o 3y agohttps://nitter.net/karaswisher/status/1725678074333635028 https://nitter.net/karaswisher/status/1725678074333635028
- Barrin92 3y ago>. But, as I understand it, it was a “misalignment” of the profit versus nonprofit adherents at the company. btw these are the people who are convinced they can align artificial super intelligence
- EMIRELADERO 3y agoNot surprised the reason was this, though definitely surprised we ended up knowing about it this way. All things said and done, I'm glad it turned out this way. Sam Altman reeked of scummy "tech-bro" vibes, not to mention the whole WorldCoin debacle (no offense to any "techbros" who might actually be building cool stuff to actually improve humanity and aren't only in it for the money)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- psswrd12345 3y agoKara is an access journalist who has been holding Altman up as the "next Jobs" for a while now. She has no credibility as anything other than an opinionated "journalist" and it would not be surprising if her "sources" are none other than Altman himself.
- ALittleLight 3y agoBut Altman would be a good source. I don't like Kara Swisher, but Altman seems like a credible source here (if that is her source). He surely knows high up people at OpenAI and may have talked to them.
- lmm 3y agoHe has every reason to claim that "top folks" were on his side regardless of whether it's true, and nothing to lose if it's false.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- psswrd12345 3y ago"But Altman would be a good source." No he wouldn't. This is the definition of a biased source. I am sure he would provide a totally unbiased view of why his own Board found it necessary to suddenly take him out completely of his own company when he is THE public face of a massively growing industry. This space is so incestuous and protecting of its own at its own expense. Good grief.
- Ninjak8051 3y agoThis BOD went out and shot their own company. Sam & friends can now cherry-pick whoever they want from OpenAI and recreate most of the value in a few months under their own governance. Firing Sam is absolutely one of the dumbest things a BOD has ever done in history. He's the founding CEO of the company that is insanely successful, he is the company. If you wanted him gone for some trivial reason you needed to get him onboard first, "here's a billion dollars, now spend more time with friends and family for the next 18 months".
- psswrd12345 3y ago"Firing Sam is absolutely one of the dumbest things a BOD has ever done in history." You sure about that? This take is going to age like milk once facts come out.
- postalrat 3y agoThe wonderful thing about these predictions is nobody cares how many times you are wrong.
- anigbrowl 3y agoidk maybe wait to find out what the official reason was before predicting the rest of the season. Large corporations don't shit the bed on a momentary whim.
- skepticATX 3y agoSo, if this is true, the safety folks won despite not having any evidence to support their position. Am I the only one who remembers the numerous takes describing how GPT-4 was going to automate all jobs and possibly end the world? They have proven themselves completely incapable of evaluating the impact of their technology.
- api 3y agoFear mongering works really well because we are cognitively biased toward it. There’s probably an evolutionary basis. If you mistake a bush for a lion you are fine. If you mistake a lion for a bush you are dead. We are all descendants of the former not the latter.
- DavidSJ 3y agoI think few people were saying GPT-4 would do that. They're concerned about further developments of the same basic technology, on a rather uncertain timeline.
- interestica 3y agoFirst person to lose their job to AI? The ceo.
- intellectronica 3y agoTheory: the rumoured employee share purchase being prepared was, or at least was suspected to be, a ploy for liberating top talent from the shackles of their golden handcuffs, so that they can leave and work at a new org with a different structure. If the board had good reasons to believe they have been deceived about something along these lines they would have had no choice but to act as they did.
- throwaway4aday 3y agoThis is going to be hilarious if Sam, Greg and a bunch of the research team wind up joining Grok. We do appear to be in the most ridiculous timeline after all.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoHopin'AI is gonna'be lit. Imagine if all the top talent from multiple agencies united for the coming Senescent Wars. popcorn.GIF
- TheCleric 3y agoThere seems to be a lot of hostility here to nonprofits and I have no idea why. It’s okay to have a company, try to do something novel, and not have profit as a motive.
- redundantly 3y agoThere are a lot of entrepreneurial idealists and c-suite wannabes on HN. Opinions tend to lean more to the right here.
- Herring 3y agoImagine you sold your soul and you see someone else succeeding (wildly) without also selling theirs. Like crabs in a bucket, some people get mad and don't want to face the possibility they've been lying to themselves.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoSo much speculation and gossip here, but it's neither constructive nor useful and unlikely to be precise and accurate. AFAIK @sama is/was a good guy, creator of value, and big supporter of YC until proven otherwise. Notes to self: A. Go the Google route with a board that can't fire you. B. Avoid dealing with all of the BS of publicly-traded C-corps with private equity. Instead of a board of directors, have a board of advisors and listen to their feedback. C. Transparency and avoid surprises. D. Know when a different style of leader is necessary for the phase of a venture and proactively succession/transition plan. E. Don't get financially involved with other people without interest alignment, or you could end up being fired by a conspiracy theorist.
- fennecbutt 3y agoThe sky is blue.